Alice L Baumgartner

I found this book to be fascinating--Baumgartner shows how US and Mexican history are so intertwined. I learned a lot about Mexican history from this book--many of the names, like Santa Anna, I was familiar with. But the details and links to American and world history--and American slavery--were new to me. I took a Latin American history class in college, and it was all about Spain, Bolivar, and Argentina (the professor was from Argentina); I also took a Civil War class, and it was largely about the legal runup and battles (we read [book:Battle Cry of Freedom|35100]. We did not spend much if any time discussing Texas/Mexico.

Baumgartner's thesis--which I don't think she spells out in full--is that the Mexican-American War was the result of Mexico's outlawing slavery AND giving instant freedom to any enslaved person who set foot on Mexican territory. American southerners had moved into Tejas--with their slaves--looking for good cotton-growing land. They wanted Tejas for the US, where they could be certain of keeping their "property". As Mexico's laws became more specific regarding freedoms and they refused to pass any kind of fugitive slave law, norteamericanos in Tejas became more and more antsy about being able to recruit more slave-owning immigrants. Slave owners in Louisiana become more antsy as more slaves ran for Mexico.

Even after the Mexican-American War results in major territory loss for Texas, American slaves were still able to run for Mexico, and they did. The numbers do not seem particularly large--but they are still very relevant. And they were very relevant to American politics.

This is not a region (Texas/Louisiana/Mexico) that is covered in many American history classes in high school or college (unless you are in Texas--but I do not know what/how they teach this time period). This book fills yet another gap in my American and world history knowledge.

Random fact: the only Emperor of Mexico was the uncle of Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination started WWI. He got played by one of the Napoleons and Mexican conservatives.… (altro)